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The Blog Squad - Part 18

We are a group of three book bloggers situated on different continents but brought together by our love for books and a penchant for talking about them. We’ve joined our forces to create a collaborative series of posts about book blogging and we hope you’ll enjoy the discussions.

How long have you been blogging? Have you celebrated any milestones yet?

I’ve actually been blogging for just over a year and I totally forgot about my blogiversary. It hasn’t helped that this year (2017) has been super manic. I managed to take off for six weeks to spend time with my little one with my family (being my folks and aunts and uncles and cousins) and we celebrated a couple of big birthdays with my cousins (a 21st and a 30th). It was amazing to spend this time with such special people in my life but it didn’t help my blogging and reading. I’ve also been incredibly busy at work, both catching up from my time away and just because we’ve been crazy busy. I’m hoping that the second half of this year will end up being a little calmer in my life and I’ll be able to carve out some more time for my hobbies.

Come August, it’ll be a year since I started blogging. AND JUST TYPING THAT HAS MADE ME FREAK OUT. It feels so weird and scary.

So yeah. It’s almost been a year. I celebrated a six-month blogiversary a while ago, and I was hoping to have a giveaway to celebrate my one year, but I’m broke. So sorry about that :( But I’ll have one as soon as I get money.

Do you have any confessions from your "newbie" blogger days?

Probably the worst thing I’ve ever done is tag an author in a negative review… WHAT WAS I THINKING??? In my defense (although it’s not a very good one) I was just trying to do the right thing and tag all the right people! I didn’t even once stop to think (until it was too late) that the author just may not appreciate my point of view!

This is so embarrassing. For weeks after I started blogging and commenting on other blogs, i was angry because I didn’t think anyone was acknowledging or replying to the comments I’d left on their blogs. I thought it was rude and I was hurt and angry and annoyed - and I could not understand why it was just me they were ignoring.

But then I, uh, realised: the blogger default comment system doesn’t send you notifs when people reply to your comment. So I got back in my box.

Thinking of it now, though, I can’t believe I didn’t go back to the original post sooner and check to see if they’d replied. But no, I stared at my inbox waiting for email notifs.

Idiot.

Do you get blog envy?

Of course I do! There’s so many amazing blogs out there it’s so easy to become envious or jealous of the gorgeous graphics, the amount of books read, the ARCs received, the amount of followers etc. etc. etc. But envy is never pretty.

I prefer to concentrate on WHY I blog in the first place, and HOW I might be able to better myself and my OWN blog. I’ve designed my own graphics, I’ve worked and worked on my layout (and by worked I mean “changed everything until nothing makes sense or works anymore and then fiddled and tweaked and I’m STILL not happy!”) and I request the books that I want to read and promote regardless of their popularity.

Let other blogs motivate and inspire you, but don’t ever forget to focus on yourself and your own successes.

OH YES!! I’ve had some really bad stages when I just lost all motivation and gotten seriously lo because my blog wasn’t as successful or attractive or well written as someone else’s. I still feel like that at times, but now I try to look at someone else’s achievements as being inspiring, rather than something I’d mope around envying. I try to learn from the bloggers I admire, and the truth is you can always improve. So I’m trying - and I agree with Di. Be inspired, but don’t sell yourself short. Try to focus on your achievements, not failings, all the while letting yourself learn from other blogs and bloggers

We hope you’ve enjoyed the latest in our series of discussion posts! Please talk to us and let us know YOUR answers below. What do you think of our responses? If you have any specific questions you’d like us to address in the future, please let us know in the comments section below.